


Stolen

by orphan_account



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Arrow - Freeform, Character Death, Gen, Gift, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was dark and cold, the night he lost his heart. But where he’s standing now the world is full of light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quisinart4](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quisinart4/gifts).



 

* * *

 

It was dark and cold, the night he lost his heart. But where he’s standing now the world is full of light.

Oliver looks around. "Where are we?”

“You tell me,” Felicity says. “It’s not my mind we’re walking in. Anywhere?”

He looks through the haze, the mist rising like smoky bloom. It’s impossible to separate grey from white, there’s no sky, no ground he can see, but he feels weight underneath his feet. He’s not warm or cold. There’s no distance or time in this place, wherever it is. Things just _are_.

He looks at Felicity. “So, why are we here?”

"Some questions ask and some questions answer."

Even here his expression is surprised, and Felicity looks satisfied, kind of awkward. Delightful.

"I read it on a poster, once. Thought it was kind of clever."

He walks toward her. “You always were the smart one.”

A smiling nod. “That’s right.”

He feels it then, a thud in his chest. Wincing slightly, he touches his stomach and Felicity looks at him, concerned.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“I’m fighting Slade. At least I think I’m fighting him.” He stills a moment, looks at her. “I may be passed out.”

She nods slowly. “Sounds about right.”

A light shifts in his eyes as it dawns on him. “That’s why you’re here."

“Well, we already knew _that_.”

She watches as his expression shifts between pain and surprise to pain and anger. But it’s not directed at her, and she sighs. Even here, he’s that stubborn. She folds her arms.

“Are we seriously going to do this, now? Here? Geez, Oliver, if you weren’t already unconscious, maybe I’d slap some sense into you.”

He smiles in memory. “You did.”

“Only once. You deserved _a lot_ more.”

“I know.” His voice is so soft. He doesn’t know if that’s his thought or hers, but it is. “I didn’t treat you right often, did I.”

“You were sort of busy being _you_. But, hey, you know. In the end, you kinda did.”

He doesn’t like that word, end. It’s too definite. Reminds him all too much about what no longer is but should be.

She walks to him, their feet a feather apart. He looks at her face, her hands, watching light dance in her eyes behind those glasses. He remembers once telling Tommy he didn’t go for girls with glasses, but with her, it was never an issue. She was his exception. Then, now and always.

“Besides, how can you be so sure?” Her voice is light. “That I’m not there but you still are?”

He didn’t know he was breathing until now, when he feels like his air just got punched out of him.

“Because…” A pause. “Because we both know what happened with Slade. What he did to you.”

Her hands can’t keep off his green suit’s collar. “I know. I mean - I _know_. An eye for an eye, a girl for a girl. This was, just. I don’t know. Just wanted to give you something to smile about.”

He looks up, an exasperated exhale that’s not a sigh and not a huff, just air that can’t stay. When he looks down her eyes meet his.

“I was happy with you,” he says. “Even if I didn’t know it at the time.”

“We both know you’re not the speediest circuit in the motherboard.”

Her lips part and give way to the sun.

“See that? _Now_ you’re smiling.”

His eyes at her sparkle before changing. His voice becomes lighter, less confident. Surprised.

“I can’t remember the last time I smiled.”

“Well, see, that’s just sad.” Her hands are at his collar again, gentle, and he shivers when he feels her fingers brush by his neck. “I mean, you were always kind of sad - not sad in the morose kind of way, like, _it’s a very mad world_ Gary Jules kind of way. More like, weighed down by everything you kept inside. The kind of sad that makes it difficult moving. That kind of sad.”

His voice sounds hollow. “That’s life.”

“Doesn’t have to be. You got a choice, you know."

"Not always."

He didn’t know there was wind here, but he feels a draft against his legs, though nothing around him changes. Maybe it’s the world outside.

"How long do we have?" he asks, looking at her sadly.

"I don't know. Until it’s over, I suppose. How long does anyone have?”

Their surroundings don’t shift in any way that feels different, things just _are_ and now they’re something else. Now they have a glass table between them, two filled wine glasses standing atop. She’s already holding hers. He reaches out, grabs his, but can’t take his eyes of her as she sips the red liquid, a small taste between pink lips, before drinking a little more. She can’t hold herself back. And he never wanted her to.

“It’s nice,” she says. “Tastes a bit like forever.”

He tastes his own and can’t agree more. He watches her and her eyes don’t falter; he wonder how he’s gone without it, that look, the way she looks at him like she believes he’s capable of anything. No one else looks at him the way Felicity does.

 _Looked_.

The table’s gone. He reaches out, finds her wrists and steps closer. He leans his forehead gently against hers, feels her pressing back. Eyes closed.

“I miss you,” he says. “So much.”

“I know.”

For a moment they just breathe, together. No words. Just a quiet ease that understands, a bond no one will ever break. Not even death.

“I still need you, Felicity.”

Her eyes open the same time as his, and he doesn’t know if it’s emotion, if it’s the world around them that’s become a fuzzy picture - everything around them is unclear. Everything except her.

“I never wanted to lose you. Nothing I do, nothing is worth it if I keep losing everybody…”

His voice breaks and a cold wind sweeps through the dark. It’s dark everywhere around them. But she’s in front of him and all he can see is her light.

“I wish I knew,” he adds. “I wish I’d known - and just, used the time I had, when I had it. I spent too much time focused on the wrong things. And now, I have nothing.”

“Not true.”

His thumbs stroke her hands. “I just want to make something last. For once in my life, I want something that lasts.”

“That’s why you have to return,” she tells him. “To make sure - make sure there’s something worth fighting for.”

He wants to stay here with her as long as he can. Forever, if there’s such a thing. But nothing this beautiful was meant to last, he knows that too.

That’s when he feels it, like a whisper through his chest. The shift is followed by cold panic, overcome by her voice’s warm security, always there, with him, like a ghost.

“It’s starting. I can feel you starting to fade.”

He feels it, too. It feels like slipping, falling backwards into nobody’s arms.

“We always knew we only had a moment together,” she says, touching the side of his face. “That’s all life is. Moments.”

She sees the dripping sadness in his eyes.

“I don’t want to go,” he tells her.

“I don’t want you to go, either. But you have to.”

He wonders if he’ll remember that encouraging smile, the way it is, here, now, eternal and full of all the hope he’s lost.

“You’re not done yet, Oliver. Stay alive. You’ll know what to do.”

“I want to stay here. With you.”

She softly shakes her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”

Around him the world starts dissolving. White mixes with grey and winds and pieces of time begin attaching to him. He looks around and all he sees is white.

She takes his hand. His right strokes the side of her face, she leans into it and he holds on until he can feel that fading, too.

“I can’t.” His voice is hoarse. “I can’t go back there - go back there without you. I’ve tried, and…” His breath comes out in a long, painful sigh. “Just one more moment. That’s all I want.”

But he knows, before she tells him, he can’t. They had their time.

"This is it, Oliver."

Icy blue eyes smile.

"Goodbye."

 


End file.
